Love Is the Risk

Love, the dutiful wheels

of time, the mother’s

milk, the arthritic

fingers rinsing your dish, the words

you can’t remember (to the music

you can never forget). Love is not the rose

but the soil kissing its feet and water

feeding its verdant bones and sun care-

ssing its palms lifted in prayer.

Love is the risk

the sky took, be-

coming, sacrificing,

letting the stars each take

a share of its heart to shimmer

with the generosity of a being

who has known how it feels to be

loved.

On the Porch

On the porch the sunshine pours into me
like a bowl of mom’s butternut squash soup
so hot the baby blue table turns white
where scented steam clumps or streaks across but
freezes long enough like a memory.

Safe in the Face of Visions of the Wild

May you one day be born and live and die 
inside a cherished flesh and soul and mind,   
in loving places too, in loving times,
while safely facing wildest of the sights;  
for life's a grand adventure, too the sun,
the seeing eyeball of the pirate who 
adorned in azure, swings his sword of lights 
at times with loudest of the roars
that daily spies your unarmed morning bed 
and yet you sail waves of drama unharmed.

Play With Us It's Safe

What do you want
What would you like
It's up to you
The choice is yours
Whatever you might wish
Whatever you decide

But when the skies are foggy black I still recall the moon 
that night its bruised red eye was peeping at us through the clouds
I said come out and play with us it's safe we're children too.

Short Poems #3-4

His Love was Thrashing 'Gainst her Heart

His love was thrashing 'gainst her heart, 
then pulling back, releasing shards
of colored glass—erect like guards.
His love and hate displayed; like art.


************************************

Perfumed Sunspot

The alley boys had asked if I
had tasted June's perfumed sunspot.
I've gauged devotion only by
the nightly pecks of moonless sky.

Voice

I crammed the words in tight iambic feet.
"Speak in feet or hold your peace," so addressed
me then, a voice like mine‒but one distressed.     
I speak in pain, of loss and rage that eat
my bones, at night; each day, fatigue my heart,
they twist my soul...and drain my love‒"Silence!"
said the raising voice relentlessly, roared,
"I guard your heart and soul.  This pain you'll not
contain without my aid, your rage impairs
all your sense, so fear emotions unchecked...."

Silently out the words I let, freely roam, 
atop my pain galloped we past meadows in rain,
the air had bled seventeen quarts of cherry tart, 
the cawing ink (heaven-spilled, erased by time),  
directed me, my face (tear-soaked), home.